1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector to be used for board-to-board connection and board-to-wire connection.
2. Description of Related Arts
In a conventional guide arrangement for connection of electrical connectors, one of the electrical connectors has a projection of a synthetic resin provided integrally with a housing thereof, and the other electrical connector has a groove provided in a housing thereof, whereby the projection of the one electrical connector is engaged with the groove of the other electrical connector for the connection of the electrical connectors (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-94241 disclosed on Apr. 7, 1995).
Meanwhile, an electrical connector for a personal computer, a mobile phone or the like has recently been demanded to have a height of, for example, not greater than about 2 mm. When the guide arrangement including the synthetic resin components as disclosed in the aforesaid patent publication is employed, the size reduction of the electrical connector is difficult.
This is because the electrical connector is liable to deform if the synthetic resin housing thereof has a thinner wall and the synthetic resin projection thereof has is smaller. Therefore, the electrical connectors cannot be properly positioned to each other for the connection. This makes a connecting operation difficult, and leads to damages to the housing and contacts. Hence, the electrical connector has an increased size with difficulty in the size reduction of the projection thereof.
If an attempt is made to provide a sufficient guide clearance for assuredly guiding the connector to a due position and accommodating a gap in the connection of the connector, the wall thickness of the housing having a smaller size should further be reduced. This results in insufficient physical strength of the housing, and makes it difficult to mold the housing from the resin because a mold volume sufficient to support the contacts cannot be maintained.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an electrical connector which has a reduced size and yet ensures an easy connecting operation, and is free from the difficulty in the molding of a housing thereof.